A couple of months back, when the Indian government asked social media platforms such as Meta to follow its new guidelines, WhatsApp had threatened to leave the Indian market citing that it would not compromise with end-to-end encryption on its platform. Now, Congress member Vivek Tankha asked the same in Rajya Sabha whether or not the Meta-owned messaging platform will exit India.
To calm down the chaos and clear any doubts that people might have, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that neither WhatsApp nor its parent company Meta has informed the government of any plans to shut down their services in India.
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In response to the question, the IT Minister said, “The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has shared that WhatsApp or Meta has not informed the government about any such plans,” as per a TOI report.
The minister even said that the new IT rules were in the interest of India’s sovereignty, defence, security, friendly relations with foreign states, and public order. These measures aim to prevent incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence.
For those uninitiated, the Government had asked social media platforms, including WhatsApp to share user details under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Post this, WhatsApp had threatened to leave the country.
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Even when addressing the Delhi High Court, earlier this year, WhatsApp said that
it would stop functioning in India if compelled to break the encryption of messages. Tejas Karia, who was representing WhatsApp, said, “People use WhatsApp because of the privacy features that it offers.” He reminded us that end-to-end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can access message content. He added, “As a platform, we are saying, if we are told to break encryption, then WhatsApp goes.”
Do you think WhatsApp will leave India if asked to abide by these rules?
